Storage installation permitting the automatic selection and removal of articles

ABSTRACT

Storage installation permitting the automatic selection and removal of articles stored at different levels on carrying elements of one or more shelf units, each carrying element (5) being fitted with a device for transporting the articles and with an individual and self-governing control member (6) for actuating this transporting device. The articles removed in this way can be grouped and moved by a common transporting means towards a central packaging and distributing station.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to storage installations permitting theautomatic selection and removal of articles, such as, for example,pharmaceutical products.

These articles are stored on shelving composed of several units whichcan be grouped and joined together as required.

This shelving is fitted with plates or other supporting elements, whichare arranged at different levels and divided up over their length by aseries of carrying elements of different width, in which the storedarticles can slide.

Installations exist in which each carrying element is fitted with adevice making it possible to move the article forward, as described, forexample, in German Application DE-AS No. 1,449,152, first published onJan. 15, 1970.

This device consists of a pushing member which can move along thecarrying element when it is actuated by a control mechanism. Thiscontrol mechanism moves horizontally and vertically along the front sideof the shelving in order to remove one article at a time.

In a storage installation in which there are a large number of differentarticles to be removed, it is obvious that a device such as described inthe above-mentioned application no longer meets the requirements in viewof the time required for positioning the control device and actuatingeach carrying element for the selected product.

Furthermore, these installations must have a rigid and bulky structure,in particular for the part comprising the device for controlling andremoving the articles, which are located on the same front side of theshelving.

The stocking of articles in an installation of this type is also verydifficult and makes it necessary to stop the installation in order toretract the pushing member with the aid of a special apparatus.

BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The object of the present invention is to overcome all thesedisadvantages.

For this purpose, the storage installation according to the inventioncomprises a shelf unit in which each carrying element comprises anindividual and self-governing control member for actuating the devicefor transporting the articles to be removed.

This individual control member can be, for example, a hydraulic orpneumatic jack fitted with a feed mechanism or an electric motor. Thearticles are preferably transported with the aid of a conveyor beltmoving along the carrying element. The carrying elements are producedfrom profiles permitting modular assembly which can be adapted to thedimensions of the articles to be stored. A series of fixed or detachableinclined planes can be provided in order to break the fall of thearticles removed in this way.

The various control members are connected in a manner which is in itselfknown to a central control unit, such as a computer.

The storage installation according to the invention will be described ingreater detail below, with reference to the drawings which showembodiments:

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a view in cross-section of a shelf unit fitted with the deviceforming the subject of the invention;

FIG. 2 is a view in cross-section of two juxtaposed carrying elements;

FIG. 3 is a view in cross-section of a modular set of carrying elements;and

FIG. 4 is a view in longitudinal section of a carrying element.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The shelving 1 comprises uprights or walls 2 and also girders orlongitudinal beams 3, arranged at various appropriate levels to theheight of the articles 4.

The articles 4 are stored on carrying elements 5 mounted side by side onthe longitudinal beams 3.

As will be described in greater detail below, each carrying element 5 isprovided with a transporting device consisting of a belt which is keptunder constant tension by rollers mounted at the ends of each carryingelement 5.

According to the invention, the transporting device of each carryingelement 5 can be actuated by an individual and self-governing controlmember 6.

As can be seen, different carrying elements 5 can be actuatedsimultaneously by their own control members 6. Each carrying element 5is advantageously fitted with hooking means 9 on the girders orlongitudinal beams 3.

Preferably, provision is made for the front faces of a pair of shelfunits 1 to be directed towards one another (FIG. 1) so that the fall ofthe articles 4 stored on the upper carrying elements is broken each timeby the successive inclined planes 7 of the lower carrying elements ofthe same shelf units and of the opposite shelf unit. The articles 4 thenarrive on a common conveyor belt 8 which is arranged between two facingshelf units and is located at a lower level than the level of the lowestcarrying elements.

The common conveyor belt 8 leads the removed articles towards apackaging and distributing station.

FIGS. 2 and 4 show the construction of a carrying element 5 in greaterdetail.

Each carrying element 5 consists of a U-shaped body 10, the opening ofwhich is closed by a profiled cover 11.

This cover 11 is provided with vertical longitudinal grooves 12 andhorizontal longitudinal grooves 13 so that modular assembly can becarried out by juxtaposition (FIG. 3), which makes it possible to obtainpaths, for transporting articles, which have different widths adapted toeach article. Lateral guide walls 14, delimiting the width of the paths,can be arranged in the vertical grooves 12, and spacers 15, or closurewalls, for articles of large dimensions can be arranged in thehorizontal grooves 13.

The axles of the tensioning roller 16 and of the roller 17 for driving aconveyor belt 18 are housed between the lateral walls of the body 10.The rollers 16 and 17 are of slightly concave shape.

A toothed ring 19 of the drive roller 17 engages directly with a toothedring 20 of an individual control member, such as an electricmotor/step-down gearbox set 6.

On the front side, the belt 18 passes over the tensioning roller 16 ofsmall diameter, which is mounted in a known manner in a fork 21subjected to the constant action of compression springs and adjustingscrews (not shown).

The articles are arranged behind one another on each carrying element 5.When the control member is actuated, the conveyor belt 18 starts to moveand the first article located near the tensioning roller 16 tilts andfalls onto the corresponding inclined plane 7. When it tilts, theselected article 4 cuts off a light signal of a photoelectric cell 22provided for this purpose in the vicinity of the tensioning roller 16,thus making it possible to count the number of articles removed and tostop the forward movement of the belt 18. The number of articles removedcan thus be recorded for each carrying element and the state of thestock in the warehouse can be obtained at any time by querying thememory of a computer running the whole system.

In the case of articles of large dimensions, they can be supported bytwo carrying elements each having its drive motor 6 and its conveyorbelt 18. However, the axles of the drive rollers 17 will be connected toone another so as to achieve a uniform forward movement of the two belts18. The two carrying elements will be connected by a horizontal spacer15 of a suitable size, as illustrated in FIG. 3.

As also shown in FIG. 1, the articles which fall cannot remain wedgedbetween two opposite inclined planes.

In fact, as soon as an article 4 has left one of the carrying elements 5and has therefore passed in front of one of the photoelectric cells 22,the inclination of the inclined planes 7 changes. For this purpose, eachinclined plane 7 is mounted so as to be able to tilt between a pair ofuprights or walls 2, about an axle 23, in order to take up a positionshown in broken lines in FIG. 1. This tilting takes place with the aidof a motor 24, which is preferably provided individually for eachinclined plane. Subsequently, each inclined plane 7 returns to itsinitial position shown in solid lines. The system is programmed so thatthe passage, in front of a photoelectric cell 22, of the last article ofa series constituting a complete order successively actuates all theinclined planes 7, always starting with the upper inclined plane andending with the lowest. As long as all the inclined planes have notreturned to their initial position, no other article 8 belonging toanother order can be caused to pass in front of one of the photoelectriccells 22.

The advantages of the present invention are:

speed of removing a large number of different articles;

ease of supplying the carrying elements from the rear, in a continuousmanner, without stopping the installation;

for articles of high consumption, it is possible to provide two or morecarrying elements aligned behind one another, in order to increase theindependence of the installation;

for maintenance of a carrying element, it can be removed from theshelving and, if appropriate, replaced without stopping the operation ofthe installation;

high adaptability of the carrying elements to the nature and to thedimensions of the articles; and

the stock of articles in the warehouse is continuously recorded and canbe consulted at any time by querying the memory of the computer runningthe whole system.

The installation described above is an embodiment according to theinvention, but it is self-evident that modified embodiments are alwayspossible without going outside the scope of the invention. Thus, forexample, it is possible to produce an installation according to FIG. 1,without the inclined planes 7 but with a central conveyor belt 8 ofadjustable height, which can collect the articles at the various levelsand deliver them when the conveyor has returned to its lowest position.

An equivalent installation can be produced as an automatic public storefor articles of high consumption, by providing a horizontal plane, orgirder, which moves vertically in order to collect the selected articlesat the various levels. When this horizontal plane, or girder, returns toits lowest level, the user can gain access to the removed articles byopening a door. The opening movement of the access door causes aninternal wall to take up a position which prevents access to unselectedarticles.

In the same spirit, it is also possible to provide an embodiment inwhich the articles leave towards the rear (motor at the front) and fallonto a lower conveyor or inclined plane which returns the selectedarticles to the front of the store, where they are freely accessible tothe customer.

I claim:
 1. Storage installation permitting the automatic selection andremoval of articles stored at different levels on carrying elements ofone or more shelf units, each carrying element being fitted with adevice for transporting the articles, and the articles removed in thisway being grouped and moved by a common transporting means towards acentral packaging and distributing station, characterized in that eachcarrying element (5) comprises a substantially U-shaped body (10) whichis closed by a profiled cover or plate (11) provided with longitudinalgrooves in the vertical plane (12) and in the horizontal plane (13) soas to be able to carry out modular assembly of the transporting paths,adapted to the dimensions of the articles, and an individual andself-governing control member (6) for actuating the device fortransporting the articles to be removed.
 2. Storage installationaccording to claim 1, in which the articles (4) are moved on thecarrying elements (5) with the aid of at least one conveyor belt (18),characterized in that the conveyor belt (18) is held and tensioned oneither side of the carrying element (5) by at least two rollers, namelya tensioning roller (16) and a drive roller (17) of slightly concaveshape, and in that the upper part of the belt (18) is supported by theplate (11), and in that said conveyor belt (18) is actuated by anelectric motor (6).
 3. Storage installation according to claim 1 or 2,characterized in that lateral guide walls (14) can be arranged in thevertical grooves (12) in the plate (11) and spacers (15), or closurewalls, for articles of large dimensions, can be arranged in thehorizontal grooves (13).
 4. Storage installation according to claim 2,characterized in that the tensioning roller (16) of each carryingelement (5) is supported by an axle which is housed in forks (21)provided in lateral walls of the body (10), and in that it is subjectedto the action of compression springs and adjusting screws, which make itpossible to achieve a constant tension of the belt (18).
 5. Storageinstallation according to claim 1, characterized in that the removal ofeach article (4) stored on a carrying element (5) is controlled by oneor more photoelectric elements or other current-breaking elements,arranged in the falling or tilting path of the article on an inclinedplane (13).
 6. Storage installation according to claim 1, characterizedby girders or longitudinal beams (3) supporting a series of carryingelements (5) which are extended on the discharge side by inclined planes(7) which cooperate with each other in order to break the fall of thearticles (4) coming from the upper carrying elements (5).
 7. Storageinstallation according to claim 6, characterized in that it comprises adevice (23-24) for varying the inclination of the inclined planes (7).8. Storage installation according to claim 7, characterized in that theremoval of each article (4) stored on a carrying element (5) iscontrolled by one or more photoelectric elements, and in that the devicefor varying the inclination of the inclined planes act immediately afterany article has left one of the carrying elements (5) and has passed infront of one of the photoelectric elements (22).
 9. Storage installationaccording to claim 8, characterized in that the device for varying theinclination of the inclined planes (7) is mounted between two uprightsor walls (2), each inclined plane being able to tilt around an axle (23)and a suitable device being provided for controlling this tilting. 10.Storage installation according to claim 9, characterized in that itcomprises a motor (24) suitable for tilting the inclined planes (7). 11.Storage installation according to claim 9, characterized in that itcomprises an individual motor (24) for tilting each inclined plane (7).12. Storage installation according to claim 11, characterized in thatthe passage, in front of a photoelectric element (22), of the lastarticle of a series constituting a complete order instructs the motors(24) of the successive inclined planes (7) to modify their inclinationso as to let through articles which may be wedged between two oppositeplanes, always starting with the upper inclined planes and ending withthe lowest, it being impossible for any other article belonging toanother order to be caused to pass in front of a photoelectric element(22) as long as all the inclined planes actuated in this way have notreturned to their initial position.